Belamy Beshka
Belamy Beshka is an adventurer, traveler, spy, and assassin of Volantene origin, currently based in Westeros. History Early Years Belamy was not born Belamy. She had been, in name, the daughter of a Triarch of Volantis, the twelfth or fifteenth or twentieth child. Her childhood had consisted of a long chain of tutors and scholars and orders from one of her elder brothers. His commands rang out as naught more than duty to the family, a favor done to their dear father: “Our father wishes for you to look your best at the ball this evening.” or “Our father bids you to recite a poem for the sons of our distinguished visitors this morn.” or “Our father would be relieved if you were to cease speaking to strangers.” She had barely seen her father since the day she was born, and almost always at some formal function or another. She could identify any of her tutors with more clarity than she could her own mother’s face. She bristled under every demand passed down the line of siblings, a steward’s signature obvious as the day on each of them. The obligation suffocated her, the droning of her teachers dulled her mind, and her only respite was found in life beyond their estate’s walls. Young Life She was eight when she first took a slave’s cloak as disguise and stole away at the edge of night, wandering the streets with wide-eyed curiosity as she stared in through windows, witnessing the perceived festivities of the taverns and the secret lives of those who were imprisoned in lives so far removed from hers. In the dead of night she returned to her estate’s gates, and the guards dragged her before one of a dozen seneschals to be punished. She wouldn’t soon forget the wroth man’s words, barring her from stepping out of the manse, even into the estate’s gardens, without one of the Triarch’s sons, one of her brothers or half-brothers, providing her escort. And yet she left. It wasn’t for several more years cooped up within the estate, feeling alone amidst the strangers she ate beside and slept beside and stood beside during ceremonies. The girl had no hope of an inheritance, and it seemed her purpose was little more than to exist as a facet of the family. When she was ten she’d decided that enough was enough, and slipped off the estate’s grounds at the break of dawn. Her tutors would report her presence missing soon enough, but by then she could be halfway to Lys or Braavos or White Harbor. The enameled dish hidden away in the folds of her skirts would buy her passage. She was caught before she was halfway to the Volantine docks, and her punishment this time was the strap. It was days before she could move comfortably and a week before the bruises began to fade, and all the punishment taught her was resentment. She would be better next time, she’d promised herself. She’d do her research, she’d have a plan, and she’d not be so easily caught as before. Her research revealed the beginning of a plan, a way to get through the city with subtlety and stealth rather than another jaunt down the thoroughfares. It also revealed something interesting – something she hadn’t known before, but that cemented her resolve: Her mother had once fled her own family, back in Dorne, after the mysterious death of her father. It would seem escape was in her blood. Escape from Volantis Three years later she was ready. The layout of the city outside the estate was etched into her memory, she’d spent time watching from windows to catch the flow of pedestrian traffic, and the gold she’d pilfered and hidden beneath her commoner’s guise was enough to buy a cabin in any ship headed west, sans questions. Within months of her thirteenth birthday, she was in Tyrosh. Most of the gold had gone into her fare aboard one of the nicer ships, an experience she’d found liberating, much of which was spent climbing the rigging, and the rest of it dried up quickly once she was on her own in an entirely new corner of Essos. She tried her best to find a way to make money and to make friends among the locals, with the sellswords and brigands, but the looks they gave her were those of wild animals, and that notion was quickly discarded. She was reaching the end of her means when she ran into opportunity. A chance turn through a side street put her face to face with a woman preparing to climb up the side of a building and through an open window. She’d never lived in a world in which guards were needed, nor in a world in which this sort of thing happened. Dumbstruck, she simply watched on, taking the coin offered by the now-smiling woman along with the words “Watch the street for me.” and turning to do just that. Minutes later the woman returned, and she was handed another coin. She’d met Beshka, and entered a new chapter of her life. Beshka Beshka was a mentor of sorts, teaching her to wield a knife, creep through a window for a fast payday, and blend into a crowd. At Beshka’s side, the sellswords no longer looked at her like she was an easy meal, but almost like one of them. She was learning, and as she soaked up more skills, so too did she soak up the local culture. It was four more years before she was ready and Beshka moved on, taking the name Belamy to replace that which she’d formerly had, and taking her mentor’s as an honorary surname. She was no longer an apprentice in crime, but a colleague. She looked a proper Tyroshi now, sun-kissed skin, wildly-colored hair, and a belt of daggers letting her blend in every way but her sex. She’d honed her quickness of reflex, and it showed in the certainty of her every movement. That confidence added to the modest good looks bestowed by her mother, and soon became the overconfidence that nearly killed her. The Riot It had been what should have been a simple job, the inciting of a small crowd into a riot against a merchant that had more than his share of enemies. Her client wanted bloodshed, wanted to turn the public away from his monstrous competitor, and with deft skill she turned a protesting crowd into a mob howling for blood, stones and bricks thrown at the merchant and his bodyguards. As the bodyguards scythed into the crowd with their blades, the press of bodies behind her closed her escape route, and as she grew closer to the fore of the crowd an errant rioter’s dagger bit into her. Belamy managed to escape her death, if only by a hair’s breadth, and a physician with few scruples managed to get her in working condition again. After that ordeal a break was needed, and she set out for Lys. The land was as new as Tyrosh had once been, but for all intents and purposes she was Tyroshi now, not simply a runaway. Now Lys passed, followed by Sunspear, Myr, Pentos, and Braavos. She plied her skills in each new city, learning and earning coin as she made her way across the eastern edge of the Narrow Sea. From Braavos came the western side, the foreign shores of Westeros. She couldn’t blend in perfectly, but the raucous Tyroshi dyes were replaced by more moderate colors, allowing her to pass as a servant or handmaiden or septa where necessary as she made her way south, down the coast. By the time she’d reached Queen’s Landing she’d regained her confidence, though now it was backed by years of experience and learned caution, and the quality of her work – often done without her targets knowing who had been responsible for their downfall or how – proved her growth. She’d done Beshka proud, and the burgeoning reputation she had in solving problems of a clandestine nature was her reward. It was in Queen's Landing that she was contacted by a particular individual who could make use of her talents for job after job, stalling the eventual migration to wherever would prove to be her next home. Category:Crownlander Category:Essosi